Plato’s Allegory reminds me of the personal growth (maturity) from childhood into adulthood, and each experience/challenge in life contributes to our heightened awareness of the world around us. Just as a sheltered child will see the world much more ideal than a child with a cultivated/open background. When thoughts get too messy/serious, many times people say that they wish they could go back to the years when, say, “homework was coloring.” But in reality, children have a very little compass of self-direction, and subsequently, rely on others (parents/adult figures) to form them. Hence the men in the cave being placed in their since birth. They have been taught nothing else but what they are told (or insinuated) to believe.
In relation to what was discussed in Monday’s class, the point of view of Plato’s Allegory has a lot to do with individual perspective. Therefore, the cave represents an augmented reality from those who make the shadow puppets, but from the men in the cave, this all that they have known their entire lives and is therefore what they see as a personal reality (window to the real world). However, the position of a narrator makes me look at this as more of a “God’s point of view” as the narrator is simply laying out a scenario. But at the same time, it is explaining the lives of men who have a misconstrued sense of reality. So I am not totally sure how to label this sort of writing properly. What do you think?
I definitely see your connection between Plato”s “Allegory of the Cave” and childhood, specifically when you compare a child’s reality to what he or she is told by his or her parents. However, I would like to pose a further question— when is the moment in which a child becomes enlightened? Further, the process of the prisoner going from not freed to freed is incredibly momentous, as his entire reality is changed— what knowledge that a child acquires in his or her lifetime is comparable to this change? Lastly, who (or what) is projecting the shadows within the cave? My initial reaction to this would be a child’s parents, but one also must consider that a child’s parents are living within the confines of their own cave.
You both make some very interesting points that I agree with. Specifically- the Allegory of the Cave as a metaphor for growing up. At first, I wanted to say that I walked out of the cave when I realized that Santa isn’t real. I guess, in a way, our society controls the shadow puppets- creates social norms, defines language, produces culture- all of which are somewhat arbitrary. I think that today, now more than ever in the post-truth era, we readily consume illusions. We have become very good at only accepting facts that support our own beliefs.
A lot of these conversations about the subjectivity of perspective remind me of the fact that perspective (our visual perception of objects) is an illusion. In other words- if you place an object on a table next to you and an identical object 100 feet away, the closer one will look bigger. In reality- they are both the same size, but our vision creates the illusion that one is larger. Or think of drawing a picture with 2-point perspective- vanishing points do not actually exist beyond our own perceived vision and representations of it. Both of these illusions help us to make sense of the world around us- but they are illusions none the less. Maybe, to some extent, we depend upon our illusions.